Why?

If we go back to the book of Isaiah we find three verses that mark the 

childhood of Jesus.

Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

And like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

And no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief

And, one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised, and we esteemed him not

(Isaiah 53:1-3)

The word, Nazareth, means a “a tender shoot” or “a little sprout.”

I don’t think that I have ever deeply connected the boyhood of Jesus 

with the town of Nazareth. His parents returned from Egypt and God 

told them to return to Nazareth where Jesus lived until He began 

his ministry at age 30.

Jesus grew up as a “little sprout,” a skinny Jewish kid. Nothing about Him 

was attractive. No one would have chosen him to be on their baseball team!  

Most of the village thought He was a bastard, AND, He had this accent! 

(South Philly, Brooklyn?) Later the Jewish leaders would remind Him of his 

not-so-kosher beginning, and his town of no consequence. Jesus had no 

educational certificates, his father being a poor, uneducated carpenter.

Here we have the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe coming to us as 

a babe wrapped in pieces of torn cloth, and laid in a feeding trough. 

Babies were slaughtered because of Him. What a weight for Him 

to carry later. He grew up in a very small town where the details 

of his conception were ridiculed. It must have pained Him to watch what 

His mother had to bear on account of Him. 

WHY, WHY, did Jesus have to go through all this? 

Because He chose to be completely identified with us in our pain, 

our every sorrow.

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” 

Dear Reader, think on these things and be encouraged.